Thursday, August 01, 2013

People will notice if the Republicans get any crazier

The other day, Jonathan Chait wrote a provocative post, "Are House Republicans Voter-Proof?" In it, he argued that the Republicans likely have nothing to worry
about in going full-tilt Michele Bachmann. After all, most people don't
even know which party is in control of the House of Representatives. Why
would they blame the Republicans?Under normal circumstances, I agree with Chait. If the Republicans keep
doing what they have been doing killing the economy inch by inch, the
electorate will not notice. As I wrote last week,
I fully expect the Republicans to pick up some seats in the House and
also likely take control of the Senate. But I do wish people would stop
talking about the Sixth-Year Curse. This is the belief of political
observers that the president's party loses big the sixth year of his
presidency. Sean Trende has debunked this idea. What actually happens is that the president's party loses big in one
of the midterm elections. That already happened to Obama in 2010.
Although it is likely that 2014 won't be a good year for the Democrats,
they are already doing about as badly as they can. There aren't many
seats (in the House at least) that they can gain.Chait mentions five factors that work in the Republicans' favor. The first
is the silly Sixth-Year Curse. The second is that Democrats tend to do
badly in midterm elections. That's true, but that's already figured into
the calculation. The third is that there aren't many swing voters anymore.
I'm not sure how this gives the Republicans an advantage when most of
those swing voters are just Democrats now. The fourth is the observation
that Democratic voters are concentrated and thus their votes don't count
as much. That's true in the Senate races, but not in the House. So I
don't get his point given that the big issue is the House. And the fifth is
that the 2010 redistricting favors the Republicans. That's true, but
again, already figured into the calculation.All he is saying is that the Republicans can continue to misbehave and
get nothing done without a voter backlash. And that's true! But no one
is suggesting that the Republicans are idiots. They respond to
incentives and they see that in 2014 they are not going to harmed if
they vote yet again to defund Obamacare. What people like me have been
talking about is the longer term. Over the next six to eight years, if the
Republicans don't start to change, they will be overwhelmed by the
demographic change. And no amount of redistricting and voter suppression
is going to save them.But this isn't even about the long term. If the Republicans refuse to
raise the debt ceiling or if they simply shutdown the government, people
will notice. The TV news will be all about this. Even Fox News
will have a hard time blaming it on the Democrats. And people won't have
to know who their legislators are or who controls the House of
Representatives. They will just freak out about the crazy party that
hates the government.(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)